by Stella Hart
I was proud of how it all turned out—I thought it was modern yet classy—but now, as I watched my grandparents curl their upper lips and cast disparaging looks around the place, it suddenly felt small, cheap, and drab.
“Do you want us to call you Edward, or do you prefer to go by a nickname? Something like Eddie Junior?” Sascha said in a joking tone, clearly trying to lighten the awkward mood.
“You may call me Mr. Paxton,” our grandfather replied in a sour voice.
“You can call me Deborah, I suppose,” our grandmother added.
Sascha’s smile faded slightly, and she nodded. “All right. Well, I’m Sascha, and this is Alexis. You probably remember us as Sarah and Alexandra, so if it’s easier for you to call us by those names, we understand.”
He sniffed. “Sascha and Alexis is fine with me.”
I forced another smile and gestured to the sofas. “Please, take a seat.”
They did as we said, and Sascha went over to the coffee table. “Deborah, our mother told us that you’re a bit of an Anglophile, so I made some scones with strawberry jam and cream. I hope you like it. There’s tea as well. Earl Grey.”
Deborah leaned forward and inspected the scones. Then she nodded, seemingly satisfied. “How nice. It’s called a Devonshire Tea, you know.”
“Oh. Yes. Please, help yourself to as much as you want. I’ll pour the tea.”
Sascha busied herself pouring tea and milk into elegant china cups, and I made up a little plate of scones with cream for Deborah. She cracked a half-smile when I handed it to her, but our grandfather’s expression remained stony, and he refused my offer for food.
“So,” he finally said, drawing out the syllable. “I can’t tell you how surprised we were to hear from you.”
“Yes, I’m sure it was quite a shock,” Sascha said, taking a seat on the sofa that sat kitty-corner from the other one.
“Honestly, the biggest shock for us was hearing that the two of you had moved back here,” Deborah said, wrinkling her forehead. “May I ask why?”
Sascha and I exchanged brief glances.
“We came back for a few reasons,” Sascha began. “I was twelve when we had to leave, and I’m twenty-two now, so really, I’ve spent more than half my life here. I’ve always seen it as my home. I know we aren’t really welcome—not as our old selves—but I want to be able to move on from that and build a new life here. It’s such a beautiful place. I always hated that we had to leave.”
She wasn’t exaggerating about the beauty of Avalon Island. It was a base for the mega-rich and a hotspot for tourism for a very good reason. Lying several miles off the coast of Washington, it was filled with ancient temperate forests, rugged national parks, and magnificent mountain ranges in the north. The outer edges were dotted with quiet seaside towns, beautiful historical estates, and stunning beaches.
The largest city, where we lived right now, was a bustling cosmopolitan place with a population of three hundred thousand, and thirty miles to the south of that lay the wealthy community of Arcadia Bay. Arcadia Bay was home to Blackthorne University, which was one of the oldest and best colleges the US had to offer.
Overall, the island was a haven and playground for the rich, and a little piece of heaven for everyone else. Even the smaller towns with lower per capita incomes were great places to live.
“Uh… me too. I’ve always seen Avalon as my real home,” I said when my grandparents turned their expectant gazes to me.
That wasn’t the whole reason I’d decided to move back here, not even close, but they didn’t need to know that.
“I see. And what is it that you do, Sascha?” Edward asked, turning his attention back to my sister.
“I’m an artist. That’s another reason I love it here so much,” she replied. “Avalon City has a huge art scene.”
“She actually did all the paintings we have around here,” I added.
Our grandparents glanced around. “Hm. They’re quite nice,” Deborah said. “Your mother was always very artistic. I suppose you got it from her.”
It didn’t escape my attention that she said ‘mother’ like it was a dirty word.
“What about you, Alexis?” she asked, turning her cool gaze toward me. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m starting at Blackthorne University on Monday,” I said. “I’m actually moving into my dorm on campus later on this afternoon.”
Edward raised his bushy eyebrows. “Blackthorne? That’s a surprise.”
I nodded, and Sascha smiled again. “She scored 99.3% on the entrance exam. It was the third highest score out of all the applicants,” she said.
Our grandparents looked at each other, and I could practically hear what they were thinking. What happened to the other 0.7%? Why did she let two people beat her? Not good enough.
“Hm. That’s good, I suppose, even if you’re starting at nineteen,” Deborah said, as if it was a crime to take a gap year after high school. “Blackthorne is a very prestigious college.”
“Better than half the Ivy League universities on the mainland,” Edward added.
I tilted my head slightly to one side. “You own the teaching hospital next to the campus, don’t you?”
“That’s right. I lecture at the medical school occasionally, but hospital administration takes up most of my time,” he replied.
I gave him a tight smile. “Well, we might run into each other on campus sometimes.”
“Perhaps.” He paused and set his teacup down. “I don’t mean to be rude, but we don’t have a lot of time today, so I must ask. Why, exactly, did the two of you get in contact with us?”
Sascha and I exchanged glances again. I did the talking this time.
“We both love living on Avalon, but we don’t have any family here, and sometimes it makes us feel lonely,” I began, even though Sascha was the only one who actually felt that way. “Mom refuses to come back here, for obvious reasons, and we don’t have anyone on our father’s side either. So we thought it would be nice to have some people who know who we are and what we went through when we were kids. We can’t tell any of our friends who we are, so that’s not an option, and it can be hard sometimes; not having anyone around who understands.”
“So… we thought we could spend some time with you. Get to know each other,” Sascha interjected. “It would be so nice to feel like we have some family here.”
Edward straightened his shoulders and held up a palm. “Absolutely not.”
My eyes widened. I didn’t expect this meeting to go perfectly, but I didn’t expect our grandparents to reject us so quickly either.
“I’m sorry… what?” Sascha said, just as taken aback as me.
Edward’s nostrils flared, and he cleared his throat. “Do either of you have any idea what it was like ten years ago? Do you know how hard we had to work to keep our names out of everyone’s mouths?”
My brows creased. “No, I don’t.”
“Your father slaughtered thirteen people and hung their bodies all over Blackthorne,” he said in a stony voice. “I know you were young when it happened, but the scandal… you can’t even imagine it.”
I narrowed my eyes. I didn’t have to imagine it. I remembered it all very clearly.
In the early winter of 2009, thirteen bodies were found hanging from tree branches on the Blackthorne University campus. Every single one of them had been gutted with surgical precision and almost completely drained of blood. Their eyes were gone too, gouged right out of their heads.
My father, who was working as a journalism professor at Blackthorne at the time, happened to be the first to come across the macabre scene. Horrified, he alerted the police and campus security immediately, and after that, the case blew up all over the media. A mass murder at one of the world’s most prestigious colleges… it was heaven for crime writers and rubberneckers who loved reading about gory stuff.
Six days after my father found the bodies, he was arrested. Someone had called in a tip about him, claiming
that he only pretended to find the bodies in order to escape suspicion. After that, his university office was searched, along with our garage at home.
Evidence was found. Lots of it. He was arrested, very publicly, and the rest was history.
“Your mother left us when she was only fifteen,” Edward said. “She wanted nothing to do with us. Not even our name. Even before she married Peter, she was already using the Covington surname. Those people practically adopted her.”
Sascha frowned. “So?”
“My point is, by the time the murders happened, no one associated the Blackthorne Butcher’s wife with the Paxton name. She was just Susan Covington to the media. But we knew that could change with the blink of an eye. One phone call from a curious reporter would be all it took to make everyone realize that we were technically the Butcher’s in-laws.”
Deborah cut in. “I used to have nightmares that people would show up at our door, screaming at us and threatening us because of that disgusting man, even though we never met him and had nothing to do with him.”
My stomach lurched at her description of my father. He wasn’t disgusting, and he wasn’t a murderer.
He was innocent.
“We were fortunate,” Edward went on, taking over from his wife. “No one looked into your mother’s distant past, and the stink of the scandal never wafted anywhere near us. But if we start spending time with you two, that could change.”
My heart sank. Of course. It was all about their precious reputation.
“We have different names now,” Sascha said, eyes pleadingly wide. “No one will know it’s us.”
Deborah bristled. “It’s far too risky. What if people saw us together? They could put two and two together somehow, couldn’t they?” she said. “After all, people our age don’t often socialize with young women. It would look strange.”
“No, it wouldn’t. You could say that we’re the daughters of some distant cousins, or something like that. Or we could just meet up and spend time together in private, like we’re doing today.”
I cringed internally on my sister’s behalf. She was so sweet and so desperate to include these people in our lives that she didn’t realize they’d already made up their minds about us.
“It’s out of the question,” Edward said. “There will be no relationship between us.”
Sascha looked like she was about to cry now. Furious at them for upsetting her, I leapt to my feet. “Why did you bother coming here today if you don’t want anything to do with us?” I asked.
Edward stood up too, eyes flashing with irritation. “To be frank, we hoped you’d agree to accept some money in return for leaving the island. We’re happy to offer you five hundred thousand dollars. Each. All you have to do is pack up, go back to wherever you came from, and never return.”
Sascha’s jaw dropped. “You thought we wanted money from you?”
“We hoped so, yes.”
I scoffed. “We aren’t leaving, and we don’t want your money, either. That’s not what this is about at all.”
Deborah nudged her husband, and his lips twisted into a discourteous smirk. “Oh, that’s right. You already have money because of that distasteful incident,” he said.
I wanted to fly across the room and beat his face in with a lamp.
The ‘distasteful incident’ he was referring to was my father’s death.
He was taken from his jail cell in the middle of the night just a few days after his arraignment hearing. At first, everyone thought he’d escaped, so an island-wide manhunt ensued. He was found seven days later in a national park.
What was left of him, anyway.
They never actually found a body. Only several pints of blood, some hair, and a few teeth. We all knew he was dead, though. No one could lose that much blood and survive.
It looked like a vigilante had broken him out of his cell, driven him to a distant location, and murdered him in retaliation for his purported crimes. However, things soon pointed to a wider conspiracy. All of the security footage files from that evening at the prison mysteriously became corrupted and unwatchable, and the guards and other staff members claimed they hadn’t seen or heard anything.
Someone had obviously paid a lot of money for all of that to happen.
Because Dad’s death technically occurred while he was in custody, my family’s lawyer launched a suit against the State of Washington, and they ended up having to pay us a massive sum of money for wrongful death compensation. We ended up with twelve million dollars, and that made the Avalon locals despise us even more. Not only did our father kill all those people—allegedly—we were seemingly profiting from it.
As if we wanted things to happen that way. As if we wouldn’t prefer to have our father alive and well. Free and clear of the bullshit charges.
“How dare you?” I said, chest heaving.
Edward held up another palm. “Let’s all calm down,” he said, as if he hadn’t provoked the whole situation. “No need to shout.”
“I don’t understand,” Sascha said in a tearful voice. “Why don’t you want us here?”
“I think I’ve already made that quite clear.”
“But we aren’t going to tell anyone about our father.”
“Listen,” Edward said, sitting down again. “That may be true, but the thing is, it’s completely beside the point. We don’t look at you and see our grandchildren. We look at you and see him. Your eyes… your hair… you’re just like him. The Covington blood obviously runs strongly in your veins.”
“It’s dye!” I said, rolling my eyes at his dramatic act. “We both color our hair brown to make sure we look totally different than we did when we were kids, as an extra precaution. We’re naturally blonde, just like the two of you were when you were younger.”
Edward bristled. “It doesn’t matter. Half of you might come from our wayward daughter, but the other half comes from him, and the mere thought of it makes me feel sick. That’s why we never tried to get in touch with you over the years. We simply didn’t want to.” He paused and pressed his lips together. Then he shook his head and went on. “We aren’t your family. Not really.”
“No,” I said in an icy tone. “You’re not.”
Edward stood up again, and so did his wife. “I think it’s time for us to leave.”
“Yes, it is. You can see yourselves out,” I replied, not even caring how petulant I sounded. These people didn’t deserve niceties.
“If you must stay on Avalon, we would appreciate it if you continued to keep the matter of our blood relationship to yourselves,” Edward said. “In return, we won’t tell anyone about your true identities and cause problems for you.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll stay quiet,” I said, eyes narrowing. “I have no desire to admit that we’re related to people like you anyway.”
He tipped his head at me. “I’m glad we understand each other.”
A moment later, he and his wife were gone. I stared at the spot they’d just been sitting in, fuming.
Sascha’s expression was a mixture of anger and devastation. Her cheeks were bright red, her eyes were shimmering, and her body was trembling. She glanced down at the teacups our grandparents had used. Then she picked one of them up and hurled it across the room with a long, feral cry of frustration.
The china shattered on impact with the opposite wall, and streaks of milky tea trickled down the wallpaper, dripping onto the shards on the floorboards.
Sascha stared at the ruined china, chest heaving. I went over to her and wrapped my arms around her. “Hey, calm down. It’s okay.”
She took a deep, shaky breath and sniffled. “Please don’t say ‘I told you so’, Lexie.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
She pulled away and wiped under her eyes. “You were right all along,” she said thickly. “They want nothing to do with us.”
“At least we tried,” I said, rubbing her back in soothing circles. “It’s not your fault they’re such assholes, and no one can bl
ame you for wanting more family. It sucks being so isolated sometimes.”
She nodded. “It’s not fair. We can’t tell anyone who we really are, and all we do is lie about everything. I just wanted more people in my life. People I can be real with, I mean.”
“I know. It sucks. But you’ll always have me, Mom, and Simon.”
“I know.” She wiped her face again. “But Mom and Simon are all the way over in California, so I basically never see them, and you’re moving to Blackthorne later today.”
“I’m only doing that because it’s a college rule. All first-years have to live on campus,” I said. “But I’ll only be half an hour away, and I’m leaving most of my stuff here. I’ll be back to hang out with you all the time.”
Sascha’s shoulders relaxed. “Yeah, I know.” She let out a long sigh. “Sorry for being moody and throwing the cup like a psycho. I’m just so mad.”
“It’s fine. We’ll clean it up later,” I said. “Let’s go outside for a while. Get some fresh air.”
She nodded and followed me out to the apartment’s main balcony. We turned to the side, admiring the view on our left. It never failed to impress.
The early-September sun was shining over the ocean, making the water glitter, and well-fed seagulls squawked and swooped, collecting scraps from tourists on the boardwalk. In the distance, a gleaming white ferry slogged across the ocean, headed for the mainland.
“Remember what you were saying about how beautiful it is here?” I said. “It really is. We’re lucky to be here, even if we can’t tell anyone about our history.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Seriously. There’s so much stuff to enjoy here. Focus on that.”
“You’re right. I’m just being dramatic,” Sascha said, giving me a rueful half-smile. “Honestly, it seems like you’re the older sister sometimes. You’re so wise.”
